mklotz
Well-Known Member
Elmer Wall
http://web.mac.com/lilenginebob/iWeb/Site/AN ELMER WALL TRIBUTE.html
was the Elmer Verburg of the early part of the twentieth century. While many of his engines were IC (a flawed concept that will never catch on), he did design a number of steam engines.
In the April 1986 edition of "Modeltec", Dave Farmer posted plans* for Elmer's "Pretty Little Three Poster". The engine struck my fancy because it incorporates some interesting features that I hadn't tried before. Here are two overall views of the engine...
The design incorporates a banjo steam valve which allows one to adjust the angle of the steam inlet pipe as well as control the speed of the engine. Also, blowcocks with their own tiny valves are fitted. The crosshead is an unusual design, consisting of two 1/8" square rods threaded into the bottom of the cylinder. This is shown more clearly with the engine lying on its side.
This was a fun engine to build and it's a good runner after a bit of tinkering to correct problems arising from the poor plans.
If the pictures appear to have a slight reddish cast, chalk it up to the fires here in Sourthern California. Normally, the sunlight reflected from our concrete driveway appears white. For the last three days it's had an orange-red color due to all the ash in the atmosphere. The upside of this is that, for the last several days, we've had highs in the 90s and humidity around 20% - perfect conditions for working in Garaj Mahal.
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* These plans are truly awful. Apparently, the original plans no longer exist and Dave drew up the plans by measuring the surviving model. His skill at deriving plans leaves a lot to be desired. Dimensions are "as machined" so one gets oddities like a block that's dimensioned 1.590 x 1.070 x 0.878. In addition, some dimensions are missing and there are numerous glaring errors (like a 10-32 gland specified to thread into a 1/4-32 hole). Obviously Dave never built an engine from his derived plans.
http://web.mac.com/lilenginebob/iWeb/Site/AN ELMER WALL TRIBUTE.html
was the Elmer Verburg of the early part of the twentieth century. While many of his engines were IC (a flawed concept that will never catch on), he did design a number of steam engines.
In the April 1986 edition of "Modeltec", Dave Farmer posted plans* for Elmer's "Pretty Little Three Poster". The engine struck my fancy because it incorporates some interesting features that I hadn't tried before. Here are two overall views of the engine...
The design incorporates a banjo steam valve which allows one to adjust the angle of the steam inlet pipe as well as control the speed of the engine. Also, blowcocks with their own tiny valves are fitted. The crosshead is an unusual design, consisting of two 1/8" square rods threaded into the bottom of the cylinder. This is shown more clearly with the engine lying on its side.
This was a fun engine to build and it's a good runner after a bit of tinkering to correct problems arising from the poor plans.
If the pictures appear to have a slight reddish cast, chalk it up to the fires here in Sourthern California. Normally, the sunlight reflected from our concrete driveway appears white. For the last three days it's had an orange-red color due to all the ash in the atmosphere. The upside of this is that, for the last several days, we've had highs in the 90s and humidity around 20% - perfect conditions for working in Garaj Mahal.
-----------------------------------------------------
* These plans are truly awful. Apparently, the original plans no longer exist and Dave drew up the plans by measuring the surviving model. His skill at deriving plans leaves a lot to be desired. Dimensions are "as machined" so one gets oddities like a block that's dimensioned 1.590 x 1.070 x 0.878. In addition, some dimensions are missing and there are numerous glaring errors (like a 10-32 gland specified to thread into a 1/4-32 hole). Obviously Dave never built an engine from his derived plans.
) should write up a better set of plans..
